"I aim to set and complete attainable everyday and long-term goals of sustainability to keep myself accountable as an inhabitant of this planet."
POINTS TOTAL
0
TODAY
0
THIS WEEK
396
TOTAL
participant impact
UP TO
10
locally sourced meals
consumed
UP TO
50
minutes
spent learning
UP TO
6.0
zero-waste meals
consumed
UP TO
60
minutes
spent outdoors
ANOUSKA's actions
Land Sinks
Explore My Area
Sometimes protecting nature requires feeling connected to nature. I will invest 60 minutes in exploring and appreciating a natural area in my region, whether a forest, wetland, coastal area, or somewhere else.
COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION
Electricity
Solar Water Consultation
Solar Hot Water
I will contact a local installer/distributor to see if a solar water heater makes sense for my house.
UNCOMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION
Transportation
Research and Advocate for High-Speed Rail
High-Speed Rail
I will spend at least 20 minutes researching and advocating for a comprehensive high speed rail network in my country/region.
COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION
Health and Education
Learn about the Need for Family Planning
Health and Education
I will spend at least 20 minutes learning more about the need for family planning globally.
COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION
Industry
Practice the 5 R's
Recycling
I will Practice the "5 Rs" — refuse, reduce, reuse, repurpose, and recycle — to reduce my waste more than I can with just recycling alone.
COMPLETED 0
DAILY ACTIONS
Transportation
Conduct Virtual Meetings
Telepresence
I will encourage my office to hold meetings virtually whenever possible instead of requiring travel.
COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION
Food, Agriculture, and Land Use
Support Local Food Systems
Plant-Rich Diets
I will source 80 percent of my food from local producers each day. This could include signing up for a local CSA, buying from a farmer's market, visiting a food co-op, foraging with a local group, or growing my own ingredients.
COMPLETED 3
DAILY ACTIONS
Food, Agriculture, and Land Use
Zero-waste Cooking
Reduced Food Waste
I will cook 1 meal(s) with zero-waste each day
COMPLETED 3
DAILY ACTIONS
Action Track: Building Resilience
Forest-Friendly Foods 2
Tropical Forest Restoration
I will replace or remove the palm oil, coffee, and cocoa products in my current diet that are known to contribute to deforestation.
COMPLETED 1
DAILY ACTION
Participant Feed
Reflection, encouragement, and relationship building are all important aspects of getting a new habit to stick.
Share thoughts, encourage others, and reinforce positive new habits on the Feed.
To get started, share “your why.” Why did you join the challenge and choose the actions you did?
REFLECTION
QUESTION
TransportationResearch and Advocate for High-Speed Rail
What are the factors that influence your choice of transportation? These can include things like money, time, and convenience, as well as perceptions of danger or safety. What would need to change for you to regularly choose more climate-friendly options?
This summer, I am visiting Japan with my family. Although I have visited before, this time we chose to travel within the country using the high-speed trains that is commonly used in Japan. I spent a lot of time looking up train schedules, delays we should expect, and the differences in cost relative to flying. I found that most large cities can be accessed by multiple train lines, the trains are often punctual and the schedule is reliable, and the cost of taking the train is often lowered by rail passes that offer deals on multiple travels. This also resembled my experience traveling on trains in Europe.
Trains are the primary mode of passenger transportation in Japan. The efficiency, speed, and accessibility of these trains allows these trains to "use 88% less energy and produce(s) 92% less carbon emissions per seat,". Thus, they serve as a model of efficiency and sustainability that other countries should attempt to learn from and adapt to.
I look forward to my train journey in Japan, and I will continue to learn more about the system and its implementation in other areas of the world. https://wanderwisdom.com/travel-destinations/Getting-Around-Japan-Planes-vs-Bullet-Trains https://www.triodos-im.com/articles/2019/case-study-central-japan-railway https://www.jrailpass.com/blog/japanese-trains
Hi Anouska, this is super cool! I've always seen Japan's efficient bus system in movies, shows, and read about them in articles, so its so cool to hear more about it. I definitely think that if more cities had an efficient train system like theirs, more people would rely on public transport. This could be really great for places where there is horrible traffic congestion, such as LA. While it might take a while for people to get used to the system and adjusted to the bus schedule, I definitely it would have a good impact on decreasing carbon emissions.
Hi Anouska, this is great! Something I want to start doing is riding the metro and bus transportation systems back home whenever I do decide to go back for the weekends. Although it would take me a bit longer to get home compared to having my parents pick me up, not only is it cheap, but less carbon would be emitted. To do this, I must first get familiar with the schedules like you did, and possibly having a friend of mine teach me would make me feel more comfortable.
This weekend, I went on a hike on the Topanga Outlook Trail in the Topanga State Park near LA. On my hike, I didn't listen to music and took my camera along for pictures so I didn't have to look at my phone. I saw flowers from a variety of species including some that are a part of the California superbloom, thick vegetation that the recent rains helped grow, and a host of birds and insects. It was a beautiful trail and I spent time observing and appreciating the nature around me, the mountains I was standing on, and the value of the ecosystems we must protect. At the top of the trail was a large platform with a hole to its side. I was curious about its use and peered down the deep hole. It was a place for hikers to discard to trash they had collected along the hike. By not using trashcans which may disturb the natural space, the park had preserved the beauty and ecology of the mountain while still allowing safe trash disposal. This exemplified that humans and nature can live in harmony, interconnected by innovation, and I look forward to more observations I make and what they will teach me.
Thank you for sharing about your experience on your hike! I often find it hard to take a break from my phone, but I think that taking a hike without even listening to music can be a great way to do so. I am very interested to see the garbage disposal system that was implemented on the trail, so I might take a hike in Topanga to see what it looks like. I have been taking walks in my own neighborhood instead of driving and I have learned so much about the nature in my neighborhood that I did not know before. It is incredible how much beautiful l nature surrounds us, but I seem to take it for granted every day and choose to focus on my phone instead of my surroundings. I am trying to make an effort to walk without looking at my phone and find at least one new thing in my neighborhood every time I take a walk.
Plants like cocoa beans and coffee beans are beloved by almost everybody. However, growing them requires large land areas that are often acquired through deforestation. Thus, although I drink multiple cups of coffee a day and indulge in chocolate whenever dessert is an option, I decided that I should reduce my intake of these items. So, I did not consume any coffee or chocolate all weekend. When I went out for ice cream, I picked a berry flavor instead of chocolate, and when I was struggling to wake up in the morning, I submerged myself in cold water rather can down an americano. It was honestly relieving to see that I was able to cut them out relatively easily for 2 days and I'm now considering making it a weekly practice.
Hi Anouska, this is great to see that you were able to find alternatives to coffee that you were also able to enjoy. I personally don't drink coffee and I would rather have pistachio ice cream than chocolate, but there are definitely other areas where I am planning on changing my diet. I have been wanting to start eating less meat for a while, so I've decided to start off with designating one day of the week where I won't eat meat. Seeing as animal products are huge producers of greenhouse gases, I would be able to have a more Earth-friendly diet.
Today, my friend and I visited the local farmer's market. Outside of my usual fresh fruit and flower haul, I stopped at a stall selling plants. They had a variety of flowering plants, herbs, and decorative plants. As a mother of 3 cacti, I decided to switch it up and buy plants that I could use the products of. I bought a mint tree and a basil plant. They now reside in my kitchen and I've already found more use for them. I used the basil in a pasta I made for lunch and mint leaves in the tea I drank this afternoon. This will reduce my costs of purchasing these ingredients weekly, the waste I generate when I don't consume all that I buy, and the packaging I use when I buy these leaves.
The plants brighten and freshen up my kitchen, too!
Further, I also found an article on how i could use ground up mint leaves as an air-freshner, a scent I'd love to have in my apartment. I plan on trying it out later this week and if it is efficient, it will also eliminate the need to purchase synthetic air-freshners and oils that are made in large factories, packaged in wasteful layers, and delivered to stores releasing emissions.
I'm glad I bought these plants and the multiple uses I've been able to make of them. I will continue to find more and update y'all on different uses for your kitchen plants.
Easy-to-maintain plants you can also buy and use : https://www.thekitchn.com/8-house-plants-you-should-add-to-your-kitchen-240560
Yesterday, I made two meals, one was a quinoa based stew for the same night and one was vegetarian chili as meal-prep for the week. For both meals, I shopped at a local farmers market and got most of my produce in paper bags that I will reuse as grocery bags. I saved the cans from canned beans to use as a litter scooper for my cat. I used all of the food waste including seeds and stems from vegetables as the base for my vegetable broth. The meal in itself was wholesome but was made better knowing it was sustainably made. Further, it helped me see how easily cooking can be made zero-waste. I assumed I would use this practice a few times a week but it may be convenient enough to implement in most of my meals. I highly recommend everybody to try it!
Here are some guidelines for you to zero-waste cooking that you can try:
I work as a Senior Advisor at the Arisaka Lab on Campus and oversee organization of over 30 members. Over the past week, I have moved most organizational/discussion meetings online for the convenience of the members but also for the preservation of energy. By not going into to lab, over 30 people do not have to commute, the lab does not have to be cooled, snacks we may bring to the meeting and trash that results is reduced, and we are able to continue to sustainably meet.
Outside of data collection and essential team building meetings, I plan on moving a lot of the administrative meetings and events online for the rest of the quarter,
Through articles, youtube videos, and public health announcements I found on the internet, I learned that family planning is essential not only to the health of women and their children, but also to the overall social and financial wellbeing of communities. The idea of family planning most importantly centers arounds the right to choose, a basic human right which women and families across the world are sometimes denied.
Although some general issues are common to all parts of the world, some are more prominent in certain areas. In developing countries with large populations and few resources, a lack of women's education has resulted in barriers in health literacy, informed decisions, and self-advocacy. However, in developed countries, restrictions to contraceptives may be more largely influenced by changing legislation and leadership.
Access to family planning resources allows women to be healthy members of society that can then contribute to the economy and society. This creates a healthier, more sustainable community for all. Thus, family planning ought to be encouraged by legislation, leadership, and educational institutes.
